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Best Famous Girl Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Girl poems. This is a select list of the best famous Girl poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Girl poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of girl poems.

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Maple

 Her teacher's certainty it must be Mabel
Made Maple first take notice of her name.

She asked her father and he told her, "Maple—
Maple is right.
"
"But teacher told the school
There's no such name.
"
"Teachers don't know as much
As fathers about children, you tell teacher.

You tell her that it's M-A-P-L-E.

You ask her if she knows a maple tree.

Well, you were named after a maple tree.

Your mother named you.
 You and she just saw
Each other in passing in the room upstairs,
One coming this way into life, and one
Going the other out of life—you know?
So you can't have much recollection of her.

She had been having a long look at you.

She put her finger in your cheek so hard
It must have made your dimple there, and said,
'Maple.
' I said it too: 'Yes, for her name.
'
She nodded.
 So we're sure there's no mistake.

I don't know what she wanted it to mean,
But it seems like some word she left to bid you
Be a good girl—be like a maple tree.

How like a maple tree's for us to guess.

Or for a little girl to guess sometime.

Not now—at least I shouldn't try too hard now.

By and by I will tell you all I know
About the different trees, and something, too,
About your mother that perhaps may help.
"
Dangerous self-arousing words to sow.

Luckily all she wanted of her name then
Was to rebuke her teacher with it next day,
And give the teacher a scare as from her father.

Anything further had been wasted on her,
Or so he tried to think to avoid blame.

She would forget it.
 She all but forgot it.

What he sowed with her slept so long a sleep,
And came so near death in the dark of years,
That when it woke and came to life again
The flower was different from the parent seed.

It carne back vaguely at the glass one day,
As she stood saying her name over aloud,
Striking it gently across her lowered eyes
To make it go well with the way she looked.

What was it about her name? Its strangeness lay
In having too much meaning.
 Other names,
As Lesley, Carol, Irma, Marjorie,
Signified nothing.
 Rose could have a meaning,
But hadn't as it went.
 (She knew a Rose.
)
This difference from other names it was
Made people notice it—and notice her.

(They either noticed it, or got it wrong.
)
Her problem was to find out what it asked
In dress or manner of the girl who bore it.

If she could form some notion of her mother—
What she bad thought was lovely, and what good.

This was her mother's childhood home;
The house one story high in front, three stories
On the end it presented to the road.

(The arrangement made a pleasant sunny cellar.
)
Her mother's bedroom was her father's still,
Where she could watch her mother's picture fading.

Once she found for a bookmark in the Bible
A maple leaf she thought must have been laid
In wait for her there.
 She read every word
Of the two pages it was pressed between,
As if it was her mother speaking to her.

But forgot to put the leaf back in closing
And lost the place never to read again.

She was sure, though, there had been nothing in it.


So she looked for herself, as everyone
Looks for himself, more or less outwardly.

And her self-seeking, fitful though it was,
May still have been what led her on to read,
And think a little, and get some city schooling.

She learned shorthand, whatever shorthand may
Have had to do with it--she sometimes wondered.

So, till she found herself in a strange place
For the name Maple to have brought her to,
Taking dictation on a paper pad
And, in the pauses when she raised her eyes,
Watching out of a nineteenth story window
An airship laboring with unshiplike motion
And a vague all-disturbing roar above the river
Beyond the highest city built with hands.

Someone was saying in such natural tones
She almost wrote the words down on her knee,
"Do you know you remind me of a tree--
A maple tree?"

 "Because my name is Maple?"
"Isn't it Mabel? I thought it was Mabel.
"

 "No doubt you've heard the office call me Mabel.

I have to let them call me what they like.
"

 They were both stirred that he should have divined
Without the name her personal mystery.

It made it seem as if there must be something
She must have missed herself.
 So they were married,
And took the fancy home with them to live by.


 They went on pilgrimage once to her father's
(The house one story high in front, three stories
On the side it presented to the road)
To see if there was not some special tree
She might have overlooked.
 They could find none,
Not so much as a single tree for shade,
Let alone grove of trees for sugar orchard.

She told him of the bookmark maple leaf
In the big Bible, and all she remembered
of the place marked with it—"Wave offering,
Something about wave offering, it said.
"

 "You've never asked your father outright, have you?"

 "I have, and been Put off sometime, I think.
"
(This was her faded memory of the way
Once long ago her father had put himself off.
)
"Because no telling but it may have been
Something between your father and your mother
Not meant for us at all.
"
"Not meant for me?
Where would the fairness be in giving me
A name to carry for life and never know
The secret of?"
"And then it may have been
Something a father couldn't tell a daughter
As well as could a mother.
 And again
It may have been their one lapse into fancy
'Twould be too bad to make him sorry for
By bringing it up to him when be was too old.

Your father feels us round him with our questing,
And holds us off unnecessarily,
As if he didn't know what little thing
Might lead us on to a discovery.

It was as personal as be could be
About the way he saw it was with you
To say your mother, bad she lived, would be
As far again as from being born to bearing.
"

 "Just one look more with what you say in mind,
And I give up"; which last look came to nothing.

But though they now gave up the search forever,
They clung to what one had seen in the other
By inspiration.
 It proved there was something.

They kept their thoughts away from when the maples
Stood uniform in buckets, and the steam
Of sap and snow rolled off the sugarhouse.

When they made her related to the maples,
It was the tree the autumn fire ran through
And swept of leathern leaves, but left the bark
Unscorched, unblackened, even, by any smoke.

They always took their holidays in autumn.

Once they came on a maple in a glade,
Standing alone with smooth arms lifted up,
And every leaf of foliage she'd worn
Laid scarlet and pale pink about her feet.

But its age kept them from considering this one.

Twenty-five years ago at Maple's naming
It hardly could have been a two-leaved seedling
The next cow might have licked up out at pasture.

Could it have been another maple like it?
They hovered for a moment near discovery,
Figurative enough to see the symbol,
But lacking faith in anything to mean
The same at different times to different people.

Perhaps a filial diffidence partly kept them
From thinking it could be a thing so bridal.

And anyway it came too late for Maple.

She used her hands to cover up her eyes.


 "We would not see the secret if we could now:
We are not looking for it any more.
"

 Thus had a name with meaning, given in death,
Made a girl's marriage, and ruled in her life.

No matter that the meaning was not clear.

A name with meaning could bring up a child,
Taking the child out of the parents' hands.

Better a meaningless name, I should say,
As leaving more to nature and happy chance.

Name children some names and see what you do.

Written by Gary Soto |

Oranges

The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.

December.
 Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.

A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge.
 I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore.
 We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.

I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted -
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth.
 I fingered
A nickle in my pocket,
And when she lifted a chocolate
That cost a dime,
I didn't say anything.

I took the nickle from
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
The counter.
 When I looked up,
The lady's eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
Very well what it was all
About.


Outside,
A few cars hissing past,
Fog hanging like old
Coats between the trees.

I took my girl's hand
In mine for two blocks,
Then released it to let
Her unwrap the chocolate.

I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands.

Written by Langston Hughes |

Quiet Girl

 I would liken you
To a night without stars
Were it not for your eyes.

I would liken you
To a sleep without dreams
Were it not for your songs.

Written by Kobayashi Issa |

In spring rain

 In spring rain
a pretty girl
 yawning.

Written by William Wordsworth |

WE ARE SEVEN

  A simple child, dear brother Jim,
  That lightly draws its breath,
  And feels its life in every limb,
  What should it know of death?

  I met a little cottage girl,
  She was eight years old, she said;
  Her hair was thick with many a curl
  That cluster'd round her head.

  She had a rustic, woodland air,
  And she was wildly clad;
  Her eyes were fair, and very fair,
  —Her beauty made me glad.

  "Sisters and brothers, little maid,
  How many may you be?"
  "How many? seven in all," she said,
  And wondering looked at me.

  "And where are they, I pray you tell?"
  She answered, "Seven are we,
  And two of us at Conway dwell,
  And two are gone to sea.
"

  "Two of us in the church-yard lie,
  My sister and my brother,
  And in the church-yard cottage, I
  Dwell near them with my mother.
"

  "You say that two at Conway dwell,
  And two are gone to sea,
  Yet you are seven; I pray you tell
  Sweet Maid, how this may be?"

  Then did the little Maid reply,
  "Seven boys and girls are we;
  Two of us in the church-yard lie,
  Beneath the church-yard tree.
"

  "You run about, my little maid,
  Your limbs they are alive;
  If two are in the church-yard laid,
  Then ye are only five.
"

  "Their graves are green, they may be seen,"
  The little Maid replied,
  "Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,
  And they are side by side.
"

  "My stockings there I often knit,
  My 'kerchief there I hem;
  And there upon the ground I sit—
  I sit and sing to them.
"

  "And often after sunset, Sir,
  When it is light and fair,
  I take my little porringer,
  And eat my supper there.
"

  "The first that died was little Jane;
  In bed she moaning lay,
  Till God released her of her pain,
  And then she went away.
"

  "So in the church-yard she was laid,
  And all the summer dry,
  Together round her grave we played,
  My brother John and I.
"

  "And when the ground was white with snow,
  And I could run and slide,
  My brother John was forced to go,
  And he lies by her side.
"

  "How many are you then," said I,
  "If they two are in Heaven?"
  The little Maiden did reply,
  "O Master! we are seven.
"

  "But they are dead; those two are dead!
  Their spirits are in heaven!"
  'Twas throwing words away; for still
  The little Maid would have her will,
  And said, "Nay, we are seven!"

ANECDOTE for FATHERS,
Shewing how the practice of Lying may be taught.

  I have a boy of five years old,
  His face is fair and fresh to see;
  His limbs are cast in beauty's mould,
  And dearly he loves me.

  One morn we stroll'd on our dry walk,
  Our quiet house all full in view,
  And held such intermitted talk
  As we are wont to do.

  My thoughts on former pleasures ran;
  I thought of Kilve's delightful shore,
  My pleasant home, when Spring began,
  A long, long year before.

  A day it was when I could bear
  To think, and think, and think again;
  With so much happiness to spare,
  I could not feel a pain.

  My boy was by my side, so slim
  And graceful in his rustic dress!
  And oftentimes I talked to him
  In very idleness.

  The young lambs ran a pretty race;
  The morning sun shone bright and warm;
  "Kilve," said I, "was a pleasant place,
  And so is Liswyn farm.
"

  "My little boy, which like you more,"
  I said and took him by the arm—
  "Our home by Kilve's delightful shore,
  Or here at Liswyn farm?"

  "And tell me, had you rather be,"
  I said and held-him by the arm,
  "At Kilve's smooth shore by the green sea,
  Or here at Liswyn farm?"

  In careless mood he looked at me,
  While still I held him by the arm,
  And said, "At Kilve I'd rather be
  Than here at Liswyn farm.
"

  "Now, little Edward, say why so;
  My little Edward, tell me why;"
  "I cannot tell, I do not know.
"
  "Why this is strange," said I.

  "For, here are woods and green hills warm:
  There surely must some reason be
  Why you would change sweet Liswyn farm,
  For Kilve by the green sea.
"

  At this, my boy hung down his head,
  He blush'd with shame, nor made reply;
  And five times to the child I said,
  "Why, Edward, tell me, why?"

  His head he raised—there was in sight,
  It caught his eye, he saw it plain—
  Upon the house-top, glittering bright,
  A broad and gilded vane.

  Then did the boy his tongue unlock,
  And thus to me he made reply;
  "At Kilve there was no weather-cock,
  And that's the reason why.
"

  Oh dearest, dearest boy! my heart
  For better lore would seldom yearn
  Could I but teach the hundredth part
  Of what from thee I learn.

LINES
Written at a small distance from my House, and sent by
my little boy to the person to whom they are addressed.

  It is the first mild day of March:
  Each minute sweeter than before,
  The red-breast sings from the tall larch
  That stands beside our door.

  There is a blessing in the air,
  Which seems a sense of joy to yield
  To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
  And grass in the green field.

  My Sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
  Now that our morning meal is done,
  Make haste, your morning task resign;
  Come forth and feel the sun.

  Edward will come with you, and pray,
  Put on with speed your woodland dress,
  And bring no book, for this one day
  We'll give to idleness.

  No joyless forms shall regulate
  Our living Calendar:
  We from to-day, my friend, will date
  The opening of the year.

  Love, now an universal birth,
  From heart to heart is stealing,
  From earth to man, from man to earth,
  —It is the hour of feeling.

  One moment now may give us more
  Than fifty years of reason;
  Our minds shall drink at every pore
  The spirit of the season.

  Some silent laws our hearts may make,
  Which they shall long obey;
  We for the year to come may take
  Our temper from to-day.

  And from the blessed power that rolls
  About, below, above;
  We'll frame the measure of our souls,
  They shall be tuned to love.

  Then come, my sister I come, I pray,
  With speed put on your woodland dress,
  And bring no book; for this one day
  We'll give to idleness.

Written by Ruth Padel |

WRITING TO ONEGIN

 (After Pushkin) 
Look at the bare wood hand-waxed floor and long 
White dressing-gown, the good child's writing-desk 
And passionate cold feet
Summoning music of the night - tumbrils, gongs
And gamelans - with one neat pen, one candle
Puttering its life out hour by hour.
 
Is "Tell Him I love him" never a good idea? You can't wish this
Unlived - this world on fire, on storm 
Alert, till the shepherd's song 
Outside, some hyper-active yellowhammer, bulbul,
Wren, amplified in hills and woods, tell her to bestow 
A spot of notice on the dawn.

*
"I'm writing to you.
 Well, that's it, that's everything.

You'll laugh, but you'll pity me too.
 I'm ashamed of this.

I meant to keep it quiet.
 You'd never have known, if -
I wish - I could have seen you once a week.
 To mull over, day 
And night, the things you say, or what we say together.

But word is, you're misogynist.
 Laddish.
 A philanderer
Who says what he doesn't mean.
 (That's not how you come across 
To me.
) Who couldn't give a toss for domestic peace - 
Only for celebrity and showing off - 
And won't hang round in a provincial zone 
Like this.
 We don't glitter.
 Though we do,
Warmly, truly, welcome you.

*
"Why did you come? I'd never have set eyes 
On a star like you, or blundered up against
This crazed not-sleeping, hour after hour
In the dark.
 I might have got the better of
My clumsy fury with constraint, my fret
For things I lack all lexica and phrase-book art
To say.
 I might have been a faithful wife; a mother.

But that's all done with.
 This is Fate.
 God.
 
Sorted.
 Here I am - yours, to the last breath.
 
I couldn't give my heart to anyone else.

My life till now has been a theorem, to demonstrate
How right it is to love you.
 This love is love to death.

*
"I knew you anyway.
 I loved you, I'm afraid,
In my sleep.
 Your eyes, that denim-lapis, grey-sea- 
Grey-green blue, that Chinese fold of skin
At the inner corner, that shot look 
Bleeping "vulnerable" under the screensaver charm, 
Kept me alive.
 Every cell, every last gold atom
Of your body, was engraved in me 
Already.
 Don't tell me that was dream! When you came in, 
Staring round in your stripey coat and brocade 
Vest, I nearly died! I fainted, I was flame! I recognized
The you I'd always listened to alone, when I wrote
Or tried to wrestle my scatty soul into calm.

*
"Wasn't it you who slipped through the transparent
Darkness to my bed and whispered love? Aren't you
My guardian angel? Or is this arrant
Seeming, hallucination, thrown 
Up by that fly engineering a novel does
So beguilingly, or poems? Is this mad? 
Are there ways of dreaming I don't know?
Too bad.
 My soul has made its home
In you.
 I'm here and bare before you: shy,
In tears.
 But if I didn't heft my whole self up and hold it there - 
A crack-free mirror - loving you, or if I couldn't share
It, set it out in words, I'd die.

*
"I'll wait to hear from you.
 I must.
 Please let me hope.

Give me one look, from eyes I hardly dare
To look back at.
 Or scupper my dream 
By scolding me.
 I've given you rope
To hang me: tell me I'm mistaken.
 You're so much in
The world; while I just live here, bent on jam 
And harvest, songs and books.
 That's not complaint.

We live such different lives.
 So - this is the end.
 It's taken 
All night.
 I'm scared to read it back.
 I'm faint
With shame and fear.
 But this is what I am.
 My crumpled bed,
My words, my open self.
 All I can do is trust
The whole damn lot of it to you.
"
*
She sighs.
 The paper trembles as she presses down 
The pink wax seal.
 Outside, a milk mist clears
From the shimmering valley.
 If I were her guardian
Angel, I'd divide myself.
 One half would holler
Don't! Stay on an even keel! Don't dollop over
All you are, to a man who'll go to town 
On his next little fling.
 If he's entranced today 
By the way you finger your silk throat inside your collar,
Tomorrow there'll be Olga, Sally, Jane.
 But then I'd whisper
Go for it, petal.
 Nothing's as real as what you write.

His funeral, if he's not up to it.
 What we feel
Is mortal, and won't come again.

*
So cut, weeks later, to an outside shot: the same girl
Taking cover ("Dear God, he's here, he's come!")
Under fat red gooseberries, glimmering hairy stars:
The old, rude bushes she has hide-and-seeked in all 
Her life, where mother commands the serfs to sing
While picking, so they can't hurl
The odd gog into their mouths.
 No one could spy
Her here, not even the sun in its burn-time.
 Her cheeks 
Are simmering fire.

We're talking iridescence, a Red Admiral's last tremble
Before the avid schoolboy plunks his net.

Or imagine
* 
A leveret - like the hare you shot, remember? 
Which ran round screaming like a baby?
Only mine is shivering in papery winter corn,
While the hunter (as it might be, you) stomps his Hush 
Puppies through dead brush.
 Everything's quiet.

She's waited - how long? - ages: stoking pebbly embers
Under the evening samovar, filling 
The Chinese teapot, sending coils of Lapsang Suchong
Floating to the ceiling in the shadows, tracing O and E 
In the window's black reflection, one finger 
Tendrilling her own breath on the glass.
 
Like putting a shell to your ear to hear the sea 
*
When it's really your own red little sparkle, the echo 
Of marching blood.
 She's asking a phantom 
World of pearled-up mist for proof
That her man exists: that gamelans and tumbrils
Won't evade her.
 But now, among 
The kitchen garden's rose-haws, mallow, Pernod- 
Coloured pears, she unhooks herself thorn by thorn 
For the exit aria.
 For fade-out.
 Suddenly there he is
In the avenue, the man she's written to - Charon
Gazing at her with blazing eyes! Darth Vader
From Star Wars.
 She's trapped, in a house she didn't realize
Was burning.
 Her letter was a gate to the inferno.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

(This poem appeared in Pushkin: An Anthology, ed.
 E.
 Feinstein, Carcanet 1999)

Written by Langston Hughes |

The ***** Mother

 Children, I come back today 
To tell you a story of the long dark way 
That I had to climb, that I had to know 
In order that the race might live and grow.
 
Look at my face -- dark as the night -- 
Yet shining like the sun with love's true light.
 
I am the dark girl who crossed the red sea 
Carrying in my body the seed of the free.
 
I am the woman who worked in the field 
Bringing the cotton and the corn to yield.
 
I am the one who labored as a slave, 
Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave -- 
Children sold away from me, I'm husband sold, too.
 
No safety , no love, no respect was I due.


Three hundred years in the deepest South: 
But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth .
 
God put a dream like steel in my soul.
 
Now, through my children, I'm reaching the goal.
 

Now, through my children, young and free, 
I realized the blessing deed to me.
 
I couldn't read then.
 I couldn't write.
 
I had nothing, back there in the night.
 
Sometimes, the valley was filled with tears, 
But I kept trudging on through the lonely years.
 
Sometimes, the road was hot with the sun, 
But I had to keep on till my work was done: 
I had to keep on! No stopping for me -- 
I was the seed of the coming Free.
 
I nourished the dream that nothing could smother 
Deep in my breast -- the ***** mother.
 
I had only hope then , but now through you, 
Dark ones of today, my dreams must come true: 
All you dark children in the world out there, 
Remember my sweat, my pain, my despair.
 
Remember my years, heavy with sorrow -- 
And make of those years a torch for tomorrow.
 
Make of my pass a road to the light 
Out of the darkness, the ignorance, the night.
 
Lift high my banner out of the dust.
 
Stand like free men supporting my trust.
 
Believe in the right, let none push you back.
 
Remember the whip and the slaver's track.
 
Remember how the strong in struggle and strife 
Still bar you the way, and deny you life -- 
But march ever forward, breaking down bars.
 
Look ever upward at the sun and the stars.
 
Oh, my dark children, may my dreams and my prayers 
Impel you forever up the great stairs -- 
For I will be with you till no white brother 
Dares keep down the children of the ***** Mother.

Written by Anne Sexton |

Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)

 Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues.

She is stuck in the time machine,
suddenly two years old sucking her thumb,
as inward as a snail,
learning to talk again.

She's on a voyage.

She is swimming further and further back,
up like a salmon,
struggling into her mother's pocketbook.

Little doll child,
come here to Papa.

Sit on my knee.

I have kisses for the back of your neck.

A penny for your thoughts, Princess.

I will hunt them like an emerald.


Come be my snooky
and I will give you a root.

That kind of voyage,
rank as a honeysuckle.

Once
a king had a christening
for his daughter Briar Rose
and because he had only twelve gold plates
he asked only twelve fairies
to the grand event.

The thirteenth fairy,
her fingers as long and thing as straws,
her eyes burnt by cigarettes,
her uterus an empty teacup,
arrived with an evil gift.

She made this prophecy:
The princess shall prick herself
on a spinning wheel in her fifteenth year
and then fall down dead.

Kaputt!
The court fell silent.

The king looked like Munch's Scream
Fairies' prophecies,
in times like those,
held water.

However the twelfth fairy
had a certain kind of eraser
and thus she mitigated the curse
changing that death
into a hundred-year sleep.


The king ordered every spinning wheel
exterminated and exorcised.

Briar Rose grew to be a goddess
and each night the king
bit the hem of her gown
to keep her safe.

He fastened the moon up
with a safety pin
to give her perpetual light
He forced every male in the court
to scour his tongue with Bab-o
lest they poison the air she dwelt in.

Thus she dwelt in his odor.

Rank as honeysuckle.


On her fifteenth birthday
she pricked her finger
on a charred spinning wheel
and the clocks stopped.

Yes indeed.
 She went to sleep.

The king and queen went to sleep,
the courtiers, the flies on the wall.

The fire in the hearth grew still
and the roast meat stopped crackling.

The trees turned into metal
and the dog became china.

They all lay in a trance,
each a catatonic
stuck in a time machine.

Even the frogs were zombies.

Only a bunch of briar roses grew
forming a great wall of tacks
around the castle.

Many princes
tried to get through the brambles
for they had heard much of Briar Rose
but they had not scoured their tongues
so they were held by the thorns
and thus were crucified.

In due time
a hundred years passed
and a prince got through.

The briars parted as if for Moses
and the prince found the tableau intact.

He kissed Briar Rose
and she woke up crying:
Daddy! Daddy!
Presto! She's out of prison!
She married the prince
and all went well
except for the fear --
the fear of sleep.


Briar Rose
was an insomniac.
.
.

She could not nap
or lie in sleep
without the court chemist
mixing her some knock-out drops
and never in the prince's presence.

If if is to come, she said,
sleep must take me unawares
while I am laughing or dancing
so that I do not know that brutal place
where I lie down with cattle prods,
the hole in my cheek open.

Further, I must not dream
for when I do I see the table set
and a faltering crone at my place,
her eyes burnt by cigarettes
as she eats betrayal like a slice of meat.


I must not sleep
for while I'm asleep I'm ninety
and think I'm dying.

Death rattles in my throat
like a marble.

I wear tubes like earrings.

I lie as still as a bar of iron.

You can stick a needle
through my kneecap and I won't flinch.

I'm all shot up with Novocain.

This trance girl
is yours to do with.

You could lay her in a grave,
an awful package,
and shovel dirt on her face
and she'd never call back: Hello there!
But if you kissed her on the mouth
her eyes would spring open
and she'd call out: Daddy! Daddy!
Presto!
She's out of prison.


There was a theft.

That much I am told.

I was abandoned.

That much I know.

I was forced backward.

I was forced forward.

I was passed hand to hand
like a bowl of fruit.

Each night I am nailed into place
and forget who I am.

Daddy?
That's another kind of prison.

It's not the prince at all,
but my father
drunkeningly bends over my bed,
circling the abyss like a shark,
my father thick upon me
like some sleeping jellyfish.

What voyage is this, little girl?
This coming out of prison?
God help --
this life after death?

Written by Joseph Brodsky |

I Sit By The Window

 I said fate plays a game without a score,
and who needs fish if you've got caviar?
The triumph of the Gothic style would come to pass
and turn you on--no need for coke, or grass.

I sit by the window.
 Outside, an aspen.

When I loved, I loved deeply.
 It wasn't often.


I said the forest's only part of a tree.

Who needs the whole girl if you've got her knee?
Sick of the dust raised by the modern era,
the Russian eye would rest on an Estonian spire.

I sit by the window.
 The dishes are done.

I was happy here.
 But I won't be again.


I wrote: The bulb looks at the flower in fear,
and love, as an act, lacks a verb; the zer-
o Euclid thought the vanishing point became
wasn't math--it was the nothingness of Time.

I sit by the window.
 And while I sit
my youth comes back.
 Sometimes I'd smile.
 Or spit.


I said that the leaf may destory the bud;
what's fertile falls in fallow soil--a dud;
that on the flat field, the unshadowed plain
nature spills the seeds of trees in vain.

I sit by the window.
 Hands lock my knees.

My heavy shadow's my squat company.


My song was out of tune, my voice was cracked,
but at least no chorus can ever sing it back.

That talk like this reaps no reward bewilders
no one--no one's legs rest on my sholders.

I sit by the window in the dark.
 Like an express,
the waves behind the wavelike curtain crash.


A loyal subject of these second-rate years,
I proudly admit that my finest ideas
are second-rate, and may the future take them
as trophies of my struggle against suffocation.

I sit in the dark.
 And it would be hard to figure out
which is worse; the dark inside, or the darkness out.

Written by Christina Rossetti |

In an Artists Studio

One face looks out from all his canvases,
     One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
     We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.

A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
     A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
     A saint, an angel—every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.

He feeds upon her face by day and night,
     And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
     Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
No as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
     Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.